Shipping container

ABSTRACT

An improved shipping container for a book or the like having an improved end cell cushioning structure that is formed in part from a cushioning panel and in part from at least one generally V-shaped reinforcement panel. The new and improved shipping container is formed out of a single piece of paperboard having a minimal size and, due to its unique construction, it may be easily formed by hand around the book or the like object to be packaged within the container or on a book folding machine of the type well known in the art.

United States Patent Sieffert SHIPPING CONTAINER [75] Inventor: William G. Sieffert, Joliet, Ill.

[73] Assignee: Olinkraft Inc., West Monroe, La.

[22] Filed: Sept. 20, 1972 [21] Appl. No.1 290,724

{52] U.S. Cl 229/40; 206/424; 229/34 HW; 229/40 [51] Int. Cl 865d 5/18; B65d 85/54 [58] Field of Search 206/46 FR, 45.26, 424;

229/33, 34 l-lW, 40, 90, 39 HW [56] References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,064,875 11/1962 Mairs 229/40 3,289,824 12/1966 Boitel 206/424 3,302,851 2/1967 .lohnsonm, 3,664,573 5/1972 Partain et al. 229/40 July 1, 1975 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 732,961 7/1955 United Kingdom 206/46 FR Primary Examiner-William I. Price Assistant Examiner-Bruce H. Bernstein [57] ABSTRACT An improved shipping container for a book or the like having an improved end cell cushioning structure that is formed in part from a cushioning panel and in part from at least one generally V-shaped reinforcement panel. The new and improved shipping container is formed out of a single piece of paperboard having a minimal size and, due to its unique construction, it may be easily formed by hand around the book or the like object to be packaged within the container or on a book folding machine of the type well known in the art.

7 Claims, 9 Drawing Figures MEWTFH JUL 1 SHEET l4 FIG. 3

F l G. 2

SHIPPING CONTAINER BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to a shipping container and more particularly to a mailing container for protecting a book or the like with the container having a unique end cell construction which cushions the ends of the book or other object from damage that usually occurs during the mailing of the container.

It is known in the art of book mailing container designs to provide the mailing container with cushioning end cells which are utilized to protect the ends of the book from the damaging shocks that occur from the frustrated basketball player type mail handlers that throw the mailing container from one mail bag to another as is well known to virtually every person in the country that has delivered a package to our postal system. Cushioning end cells have taken many forms, one of which is typified by the US. Pat. No. 2,847,152, issued to L. D. Van Antwerpen on Aug. 12, 1958 wherein the end panel construction is formed as a wrap-around hollow member formed out of five panels which are folded out of the flap shown as the numeral 9 in FIG. 2 of the drawing. A variation of this concept is shown in the US. Pat. No. 3,179,325, issued to R. H. Johnson on Apr. 20, 1965 wherein the cushioning end cell is formed of three intermediate strips or panels numbered 50, 52, 54, and 32, 34 and 36 as shown in FIG. 4 of his drawing. A more refined variation of this type end cell construction is shown in the US. Pat. No. 3,368,735, issued to H. L. Levi on Feb. 13, 1968 wherein four panels numbered P6, P7, P8 and P9 are utilized in combination with a tab label T2 as shown in FIG. 1 of his drawing.

Another variation of this type of end cell construction is shown in the US Pat. No. 3,386,641, issued to B. Cassidy on June 4, 1968 wherein four panels numbered 40, 41, 42 and 43 are utilized in combination with other panels to provide a wrap-around end cell construction for cushioning the book in the package. Other designs of end cells were attempted as typified by the US. Pat. No. 3,386,642, issued to G. H. Young on June 4, 1968 wherein a six panel structure was attempted using the panels numbered 8, 34, 26, 42, 27 and 35 as shown in FIG. I of his drawing which were folded in the manner shown in FIG. 2 of the drawing to provide the end cell construction. As a variation of this type of structure reference should be made to the US. Pat. No. 3,399,821, issued to N. A. Ringholz on Sept. 3, 1968 wherein a four panel construction utilizing panels numbered 25, 26, and 27 were folded to form the end cell cushioning structure shown in FIG. 2 of his drawing. A more simplified version of this structure is also shown in the US. Pat. No. 3,485,435, issued to A. Greene et al on Dec. 23, 1969 wherein the panels 50 and 52 along with the panels 32 and 34 were folded about the scorelines 38 and 48 to form the end cell structure shown in FIG. 4 of the drawing.

While all of the beforementioned prior art end cell constructions provided some cushioning effect to the article being packaged, for one reason or another they have not found wide acceptance in the marketplace undoubtedly due to either the amount of protection that they provided, the cost of obtaining the protection by means of a larger production blank or the problems of machining the production blank which is the term referred to in the art to mean the machine folding of the production blank around the article packaged in the container. A somewhat more up-to-date end cell structure is shown in the US. Pat. No. 3,664,573, issued to J. H. Partain et al. on May 23, 1972 wherein the end cell is formed with a four panel effect with the cell arrangement shown as the numeral 30, forming actually two panels of the four panel end cell. As can be seen in FIG. 3 of his drawing the end cell construction of this invention utilizes an upwardly and outwardly inclined panels formed out of panels 42 in combination with a plurality of horizontal panels formed out of panels 40, both of these panels being shown generally by the numeral 30 in the drawing. In combination with this there is provided a vertical panel 56 and a horizontal panel 54 which is wedged between the book and the second rectangular panel 14 as shown in FIG. 6 of the drawing. A more complicated version of this patent is shown in the [1.5. Pat. No. 3,666,168, issued to J. H. Partain et al. on May 30, 1972. While these structures may provide the desired cushioning of the book with their particular end cell structures, it is felt that whenever the particular production blank is machined, or as beforementioned, folded around the book to be contained in the package, problems will occur which will make the use of this container economically prohibitive.

In the packing of books into containers such as taught by the invention and the prior art cited herein, it is well known that assembly line speeds ranging between 20 and 40 books per minute are commonplace with the books being generally positioned in the package manually by women packers who build up quite a manual dexterity in placing the books in the package while the packaging line is traveling at the high rate of speed necessary to handle the 20 to 40 books per minute. In machining the mailing container taught by the first mentioned Partain US. Pat. No. 3,664,573 it becomes necessary to first fold the cell construction 30 in the manner shown in FIG. 3 of the drawing and then to fold down the wall panel 56 and to fold over the wall panel 54 while holding it in position so that the book can be rapidly placed in the container. While this folding can be accomplished automatically by the packaging machine it is felt that such a machine would be expensive to manufacture and would be exceedingly large in order to handle all of the folding steps necessary prior to the placement of the book in the container. If some of the folding steps are performed manually, as for example breaking the scoreline 58 in order to fold the wall panel 54 horizontally and to hold it in place while the book is placed in the package, then it is questionned whether or not the beforementioned packaging speeds would be obtainable using this structure.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In order to overcome the problems inherent in the beforementioned prior art patents, there has been provided by the subject invention a new and improved shipping container for a book or the like which has a new and novel end cell construction which may be formed simply out of a minimum of panels and which may be easily formed into the cushioning end cell thereby allowing the package to be utilized on a hand assembly line or a high speed packaging line. In the preferred embodiment shown the cushioning end cell may be formed with at least one V-shaped reinforcement panel in combination with a cushioning panel with these panels being hingedly attached to each other and to the bottom panel. In a modification of the invention the reinforcement panel may be formed in the nature of two V-shaped reinforcement panels which are hingedly attached to the cushioning panel.

Accordingly it is an object of the invention to provide a new and improved shipping container that may be easily hand folded or machined at the high packaging speeds required in todays technology.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a new and improved shipping container which has an improved end cell construction that provides improved cushioning of the contents of the package without requiring large amounts of paperboard for the construction blank or without requiring intricate and large numbers of folding panels in order to provide the end cell cushioning.

Still another object and advantage of the invention is to provide an improved mailing container which utilizes end cell cushioning provided by a minimum of at least one cushioning panel and at least one V-shaped reinforcement panel, both panels being formed out of and hinged to the bottom panel of the mailing container.

These and other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from a reading of the description of the preferred embodiment and from a study of the drawings showing the preferred embodiment.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the subject shipping container as folded and ready to be mailed;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view, taken along lines 2-2 of FIG. 1, showing a book in place in the subject shipping container;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view, taken along lines 3--3 of FIG. 1, showing the end cell construction of the subject shipping container;

FIG. 4 is a plan view of the production blank of the subject invention;

FIG. 5 is an enlarged plan view of the cushioning end cells of the subject invention;

FIG. 6 is a partial perspective view of the cushioning end cells shown folded in place and cushioning the edges of the book which may be packaged in the mailing container;

FIG. 7 is a partial plan view of a modification of the subject end cell;

FIG. 8 is a partial enlarged plan view of the modification shown in FIG. 7; and

FIG. 9 is a partial perspective view of the modification shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 shown folded in place and cushioning the edges of the book that may be packaged in the mailing container.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to the drawings in general and in particular to FIG. I of the drawings there is shown the new and novel shipping container of the invention generally by the numeral 10 which comprises a top panel 12 and a bottom panel 14 which is hingedly attached to the top panel 12 by means of an end panel 16 at the scorelines I8 and 20. The top panel 12 also has hingedly attached thereto, by means of the scorelines 22, 24 and 26, the end panels 28, 30 and 32. Hingedly attached to the end panels 28, 30 and 32, by means of the scorelines 34, 36 and 38 are a plurality of cover panels 40, 42 and 44.

Referring now to FIGS. 1-3 of the drawings there is formed on opposite sides of the bottom panel 14 a cushioning end cell 46 which serves to cushion the book 48 or other object which is placed within the shipping container whenever it is assembled. In the embodiment shown in FIG. 3 of the drawing, the end cell 46 comprises two V-shaped reinforcement panels 50 and 52 which are hingedly attached to a cushioning panel 54 and to each other by means of an intermediate panel 56.

Whenever the end cell construction 46 is formed in this manner, as will be described more fully hereinafter, the V-shaped reinforcement panels 50 and 52 provide structural support to the cushioning panel 54 whenever the cushioning panel 54 is affected by shocks occurring from the beforementioned mishandling of the package by the mailer.

Referring now to FIG. 4 of the drawing there is shown the production blank which is used to form the shipping package and from which the cushioning end cells 46 are formed. The V-shaped reinforcement panels 50 and 52 are formed by means of the two uneven legs 58 and 60 and by means of the scoreline 66 which may be a perforated score in order that the legs 58 and 60 can be easily folded into their V-shape. The legs 58 are hingedly attached to the cushioning panel 54 by means of the scoreline 62 which may preferably be hinged slit scores which also aid in the folding of the V- shaped reinforcement panels. The intermediate panel is hingedly attached to the leg 60 of the reinforcement panels by means of the scorelines 68 and 70 which may be perforated scores as taught in the preferred embodiment. When the shipping container shown is formed out of corrugated paperboard, it is preferable to provide a full slit score 72 between the cushioning panels 54 and the intermediate panel 56, to aid the folding of the end cell 46 since these panels are positioned back to back whenever the end cell 46 is completely folded in place. In the embodiment shown, the cushioning panel 54 is generally trapezoidal shaped and is hinged to the bottom panel 14 by means of the scoreline 64 which may be a perforated score to facilitate folding. The leg 58 of the V-shaped reinforcement panel 52 is severed from the end panel 16 by means of the die cut 74 in the preferred embodiment.

Referring now generally to FIGS. 5 and 6 of the drawing there is shown an enlarged plan view of the cushioning end cell 46 prior to its being folded into its final position and there is shown in FIG. 6 the same end cell being folded into position and showing the relation ship of the end cell structure to the book which it supports. Whenever the end cell is to be folded to the position shown in FIG. 6, either by hand or by machine, a force is applied in the direction shown by the arrow 76 while applying a force upward, shown by the arrow 78 from beneath the end cell in the general vicinity of the full score 72 between the cushioning panel 54 and 56. The upward force 78 is necessary in order to break the various scores and to start the folding sequence which is completed by constantly applying the force in the direction shown by the arrow 76 until the end cell is formed with its two V-shaped reinforcement panels 50 and 52 as taught by the preferred embodiment. Due to the unique arrangement of the various scores and die cuts, the end cell 46 may be quickly formed after the scores have been broken and may be easily held in the supporting position until the book has been placed within the container and the end panels 28 and 32 have been folded around the end cell with the cover panels 40, 42 and 44 then being glued in place or held by some other means well known in the art.

Referring now to FIG. 7 of the drawing there is shown a plan view of a modification of the basic construction wherein the end cell 46 is formed with a single V-shaped reinforcement panel instead of the two V- shaped reinforcement panels as beforedescribed. In this embodiment, the cushioning panel is shown by the numeral 80 and the intermediate panel is shown by the numeral 82 while the V-shaped reinforcement panel is shown generally by the numeral 84 and comprises a pair of legs 86 and 88 hingedly attached to each other by means of the scoreline 90. The leg 86 is hingedly attached to the intermediate panel 82 by means of the scoreline 92 while the leg 88 is hingedly attached to the cushioning panel 80 by means of the scoreline 94. In a like manner the intermediate panel 82 is hingedly attached to the cushioning panel 80 by means of the scoreline 96 with the cushioning panel being severed from the end panel 16 by means of the die cut 98 and being hingedly attached to the bottom panel 14 by means of the scoreline 100.

Referring now to FIGS. 8 and 9 in general and in particular to FIG. 8 there is shown an enlarged plan view of the modification shown in FIG. 7. [n folding the modification, a force was applied in the direction shown by the arrow 102 while applying a upward force from beneath the end cell blank as shown by the arrow 104 until the respective scorelines are broken. Due to the unique construction and arrangement of the scores, the application of these forces will quickly and automatically form the end cell into the configuration shown in FIG. 9 of the drawing and having one V- shaped reinforcement panel cushioning the end cell. When formed in this manner the generally rigid covers 102 and 104 of the book 48 are supported by the upper and lower portion of the cushioning panel 80 with the V-shaped reinforcement panel 84 providing the necessary structural support to the cushioning panels to absorb the beforementioned damaging shocks occurring to the book covers and to the book proper. In a like manner when using the preferred embodiment as shown in F 10. 6 of the drawing the covers 102 and 104 of the book 48 are supported by the upper and lower edges of the cushioning panel 54 which is structurally reinforced by means of the two generally V-shaped reinforcement panels 50 and 52.

From the foregoing it is apparent that there may be many modifications of the basic invention without departing from the spirit and scope thereof. For example it is conceivable that by varying the number and arrangement of the respective scores, the V-shaped reinforcement panel of the invention may number more than the two as shown in the preferred embodiment and the one as shown in the modification. For example the reinforcement panels may number three and more and also may be repositioned to other positions than that shown generally in H68. 6 and 9 of the drawings thereby providing the same effect as the subject preferred embodiment and modification. It can be seen that there has been provided by the subject invention an improved shipping container for a book or the like which has new and novel end cell cushioning structure that may be formed from a single piece of paperboard or other material with the use of minimum construction material. In addition the improved shipping container may be quickly and easily set up, either by machine or by hand, to provide the necessary cushioning and protection of the contents of the container. While many changes may be made in the arrangement of the respective parts and panels of the invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, the subject invention is not to be limited to preferred embodiment shown since this has been given by way of illustration only.

Having described my invention, I claim:

1. In a shipping container for a book or the like and of the type comprising a top panel, a plurality of end panels hingedly attached to the top panel, a plurality of cover panels hingedly attached to the end panels and a bottom panel hingedly attached to at least one of the end panels, the improvement comprising:

a. the bottom panel having formed on each of two opposite sides thereof a substantially vertical cushioning panel, said cushioning panels being hingedly attached to the opposite sides of the bottom panel; and

b. each cushioning panel having formed thereon at least one reinforcement panel, said reinforcement panels being hingedly folded along a fold line in the shape of a V and perpendicularly attached to the cushioning panel.

2. The improvement as defined in claim 1 wherein said cushioning panels each have formed thereon one V-shaped reinforcement panel.

3. The improvement as defined in claim 1 wherein said cushioning panels each have formed thereon two V-shaped reinforcement panels.

4. The improvement as defined in claim 2 wherein said reinforcement panel has two legs one of said legs is hinged to an intermediate panel which is in turn hinged to the cushioning panel and the other leg of said V-shaped reinforcement panel is hinged to the cushioning panel.

5. The improvement as defined in claim 3 wherein said two V-shaped panels formed on each cushioning panel are hingedly attached in part to the cushioning panel and in part to each other by means of an intermediate panel.

6. An improved end cell cushioning structure for a shipping container having a top panel, a plurality of end panels hingedly attached to the top panel, and a horizontal bottom panel hingedly attached to at least one of said end panels, said cushioning structure comprismg:

a. at least one cushioning panel pivotally attached to said bottom panel and positioned at a angle to said bottom panel, said cushioning panel having at least one upper edge which extends at an acute angle away from a point adjacent said bottom panel; and

b. a reinforcing panel hingedly connected along said edge and positioned at a 90 angle to said cushioning panel, said reinforcing panel extending between one of said end panels connected to said top panel and the cushioning panel to reinforce same.

7. An apparatus as recited in claim 6 in which said structure includes:

a. an intermediate panel connected to said edge of said cushioning panel, and hingedly positioned adjacent and parallel to said cushioning panel; and

b. a second reinforcing panel connected to said intermediate panel and positioned at a 90 angle to said cushioning panel. 

1. In a shipping container for a book or the like and of the type comprising a top panel, a plurality of end panels hingedly attached to the top panel, a plurality of cover panels hingedly attached to the end panels and a bottom panel hingedly attached to at least one of the end panels, the improvement comprising: a. the bottom panel having formed on each of two opposite sides thereof a substantially vertical cushioning panel, said cushioning panels being hingedly attached to the opposite sides of the bottom panel; and b. each cushioning panel having formed thereon at least one reinforcement panel, said reinforcement panels being hingedly folded along a fold line in the shape of a V and perpendicularly attached to the cushioning panel.
 2. The improvement as defined in claim 1 wherein said cushioning panels each have formed thereon one V-shaped reinforcement panel.
 3. The improvement as defined in claim 1 wherein said cushioning panels each have formed thereon two V-shaped reinforcement panels.
 4. The improvement as defined in claim 2 wherein said reinforcement panel has two legs one of said legs is hinged to an intermediate panel which is in turn hinged to the cushioning panel and the other leg of said V-shaped reinforcement panel is hinged to the cushioning panel.
 5. The improvement as defined in claim 3 wherein said two V-shaped panels formed on each cushioning panel are hingedly attached in part to the cushioning panel and in part to each other by means of an intermediate panel.
 6. An improved end cell cushioning structure for a shipping container having a top panel, a plurality of end panels hingedly attached to the top panel, and a horizontal bottom panel hingedly attached to at least one of said end panels, said cushioning structure comprising: a. at least one cushioning panel pivotally attached to said bottom panel and positioned at a 90* angle to said bottom panel, said cushioning panel having at least one upper edge which extends at an acute angle away from a point adjacent said bottom panel; and b. a reinforcing panel hingedly connected along said edge and positioned at a 90* angle to said cushioning panel, said reinforcing panel extending between one of said end panels connected to said top panel and the cushioning panel to reinforce same.
 7. An apparatus as recited in claim 6 in which said structure includes: a. an intermediate panel connected to said edge of said cushioning panel, and hingedly positioned adjacent and parallel to said cushioning panel; and b. a second reinforcing panel connected to said intermediate panel and positioned at a 90* angle to said cushioning panel. 